"The thing about heroin, it's very more-ish." Russell Brand is the former golden boy reporting on his smack-addled fall from grace. On his last Edinburgh visit, he was thrown out of the Gilded Balloon for abusive behaviour. After this new show, however, you'd rather hug him than hit him. Its chronicle of drug addiction is often horribly funny, and Brand presents it with an appealing intelligence and optimism.
What works so well is the combination of deceptively sharp wit and Tigger-ish physical enthusiasm. Mind you, Brand is catatonic when compared with his junkie self, ghastly footage of whom we're shown stripping naked and terrorising police at an anti-capitalist demo. He doesn't flinch from self-criticism in describing his past misdemeanours: introducing his dealer, Gritty, to Kylie Minogue; examining sexuality for his TV show by pulling off a stranger in a public loo. Thankfully, rehab teaches that all crimes are absolved if you precede your confession with the phrase: "To my shame ... "
The wanking anecdotes are given too much prominence here, and his rehab stories, perhaps predictably, aren't as funny as those of his addiction. But this is still an accomplished comeback, by a comic with a flair for language (the homeless, he explains, are "scabby vending machines for karma") and a righteous loathing of Richard Littlejohn. Definitely worth a crack.
· Until August 30. Box office: 0131-556 6550.
